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Windows or Mac for iPod?


OldSkoolMac
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I was wondering if anybody knows what will give me more available memory for my iPod 2GB nano.... Windows or Mac? I am currently using Windows and I noticed in my "About..." screen, it says 1.8GB with 1.2 available. That seems like a whole lot of wasted memory. Where is that extra .6GB?

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I'm not sure. If you format the iPod for Windows use, it's FAT 32 and will work with either Mac or Windows computers. If you format it for HFS+ (Macintosh), it won't work with Windows computers. FAT 32 is a much older formatting scheme so it might possibly be less efficient space-wise. Don't quote me on that.

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FAT32 is much less efficient than HFS+. As the partition gets linearly larger, the partition table grows exponentally. Also, FAT32 is much more likely to become fragmented. Both of these are reasons why Windows XP won't let you make FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB.

 

In my opinion, make it HFS+ and get MacDrive. If I remember correctly, it supports HFS+ iPods. :happymac:

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I think the missing .6GB is used for the iPod OS and other built in features so there is really no way to get it back no matter what format you use.

 

Each format has its pros and cons.

Using the Mac format you can have files that are over 4GB on it (Which doesn't really matter to you) But its good for the people who have bigger iPods and want to transfer large files. Sadly the only way to have your Mac Formated iPod be seen on a PC is if you have a program like 'MacDrive' installed so Windows can see a Mac formated drive.

 

Using FAT32 is you best bet if you want to switch between a Mac and PC or if your a PC user. FAT32 is very univeral. Downside thou is that you can not move around files that are bigger then 4GB.

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  • 1 year later...

You can use Mac-formatted iPods with Windows if you install MacDrive. I've found my 60GB 5G boots much faster when nearly full of music HFS+ formatted compared with FAT32, but this might not be an issue with a smaller 'pod. I also had to restore my iPod a couple of times due to data corruption with FAT32, but haven't yet since it's been HFS+ formatted (about 6 months now) but that might just be that I haven't done anything to it that would cause data corruption (like the battery going during a drive write, maybe?)

 

Another advantage which you might not care about is the ability to have uPPeR and LoWEr case letters in HFS+ volume names, but not FAT32, and you're not limited to 8 characters. Probably inconsequential, however, but it looks neater on the desktop ;)

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My iPod is formatted in FAT32, any way of getting it formatted to HFS+? Like the steps on how that would be done and whatnot.

 

ya, just click restore in iTunes (on your mac), then it'll reinstall the stuff and reformat to HFS+

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